Page 50 of Copper

“We?”

I hold up a finger. I’ll get to that. “I texted him for months, acting like I needed to find him to serve him papers. I had to keep you busy and your mind off Cannon and the two dipshits. Funny what Ellen’s campground can cover. You’ll never find him. We burned him in a fire pit, and he’s dust in the wind. Just in case anything was left of the ash, we took care of it with a shovel and Ellen’s fishing pond.”

“Ellen was involved?”

“Let me guess. You went to talk to her and she said nothing except that she had an abortion, and that was the last she saw of Beck? Yeah, did you really think she wouldn’t tell me you went sniffing around? I should have given her a heads up you were going to look, but I didn’t get a chance. We talked about it over one of our monthly lunches. I have lunch with her once or twice a month, we act like we’re old friends, and we share if anyone is on to us or sniffing around. We turn our phones off while we lunch. Can’t text and call with that kind of information, you know?”

“That’s why you go back to Chicago a couple times a month.”

I nod. “There was no abortion.” I pause, closing my eyes at the memory of the worst day of Ellen’s life. “I was the one that found her. After he kicked her stomach until she lost the baby, I found her on the floor and helped her. I had followed him with the tracking app and was outside her house. He left, and I heard her crying and screaming from almost a block away since that entire neighborhood has the acoustics of a concert hall. She didn’t want a hospital, so I held her hand for hours as she miscarried while her husband was at work. She screamed in pain the whole time, and I just held her hand. I cried for her. With her. It was all I could do for her at the moment. I held her head as she threw up and writhed for hours.

“Here was a woman that was fucking my husband. I should have hated her. I felt sorry for her, though. He treated her the same way he treated me. He killed her child because he was out of town the two weeks the baby was conceived. It was Jalen’s baby, and he was jealous. He wanted children with me. Did I ever tell you that?” Aaron shakes his head. “Beck wanted kids so bad. I’m sure it was a pride thing with him. Vanity. I often wondered if the beatings would stop if I got pregnant, and I was tempted for that reason alone. But I also knew that I’d be forever tied to him if I did conceive, and the beatings would start again at some point. Hell, I couldn’t take a chance he’d hurt our child, and I didn’t want a child to witness the daily abuse I went through.

“It’s funny that I used to judge women who had children with abusive men. I guess I looked down on them because women should leave and certainly not bring another human into that situation. But after being married to that piece of shit, I get it. It’s terrifying. It’s indescribable when they threaten your life and everyone you’ve ever loved if you leave. You think about it – you actually think about having a child just so you may not get abused for nine months. It’s crazy, isn’t it?”

Aaron grits his teeth and nods.

“He was enraged when Ellen’s baby wasn’t his. She told me he yelled at her because she was now going to get fat with another man’s spawn, and he didn’t want her fat. She was his property. At least, that’s what he said. Beck kicked her stomach over and over while he tied her hands up so she couldn’t defend herself. Beck’s death can’t all be pinned on me for that one. There’s at least one other woman in the world that felt like he deserved what he got.”

“Ellen helped you?” he asks again like he can’t believe two women didn’t give him the information he needed when he asked.

“I drugged him when he came home by using Murphy’s shit I knew Beck was helping run. I called her, using our code of coming over for a cup of coffee like normal wives of coworkers, and we dragged him to her campground. The summer season was ending, so a section was empty. If you want the full details, and I think you just asked for everything, we sawed him apart piece by piece with a rusty saw from the toolbox as he was coming to. It’s in there if you’re going to take it for evidence,” I say, gesturing toward the hole in the wall with my chin. I think I cleaned it well, but who knows. “Ellen laid on top of him while I sawed his legs and arms off first. She cried the whole time, telling me to hurry up.”

I pause and swallow. I had a hard time sawing a man apart while he was alive and gaining consciousness, even if he was awful to me. I did that to the same man I shared a bed with and whose wedding pictures hung on my mantle.

Aaron turns his head and makes a gagging gesture. He swallows and turns back to face me, releasing his grip on my neck a little. His face crinkles like he’s holding back sobs. “The hardware store wasn’t a purchase for a faucet, was it?”

I shake my head. “Lighter fluid and a shovel. It’s surprising neither Ellen nor I had either of those. Women, huh?”

“George Cannon?” he asks in a whisper.

“Ah, I didn’t know anything about George Cannon until he came looking for Beck and Beck’s money. I still have no idea what Beck was going to do with the cash. I liked your theory of using it to run away from me, but we now know that didn’t happen, don’t we? Beck wasn’t going anywhere. Did he have a second mistress on the side that Ellen and I didn’t know about? A gambling problem? I’ll never know. I knew damn good and well that Beck wasn’t able to pay, though. He was sawed into pieces and burned in a firepit on Ellen’s land after being doused with lighter fluid. But I could hardly have said that, right?”

“How did you find out who Cannon was?”

I reach up and run my hand down Aaron’s cheek. “I’m so glad we’re finally having this conversation. See, Murphy Beckett likes to talk about his business associates when he’s getting his dick sucked by Sheri on the next couch over. Why are men like that?”

Aaron cringes and ignores my question. “Murphy talked about Cannon?”

“I pieced a lot together over a couple weeks when Murphy came in during my day shifts. He was going on and on about how he was going to be the new big dog for the mafia in the county. Only George stood in the way. From the description, I pieced together that George Cannon was the guy who sat on my couch and had his thugs threaten me. It was easy to find him after I had a name.

“Murphy hated that son of a bitch. There was a little turf war bitch slapping going on between the two of them. Something over George wanting to get into the girl trafficking business and Murphy not wanting to share the county. Once I had a name, I didn’t want any neighbors involved or kids if he had them. I waited until the neighbors were at work. The only problem was the dog. Poor thing. I gave it food and water before I left, hoping someone would find George sooner rather than later so the dog wouldn’t go hungry.”

I take a deep breath and keep going. “I came in under the pretense of giving him his money. If he suspected something weird, I’ll never know. Maybe he was going to kill me for finding out his name and where he lived, but I got to him first. I hit him with a wrench, and he went down. He was still alive, so I tied him up. Don’t think I just went to work right there, though. I asked him questions.” I stare at the wall behind Aaron, remembering the conversation. “I told him it was my turn to ask him questions while he was on his knees. He told me the names of the guys that he hired to threaten me. He told me every name but Geoffrey’s. I didn’t know who he was until the gala. I’m not entirely sure if Cannon even knew it since he didn’t even say it when I chopped four fingers off.”

“You didn’t bring Ellen in to help on the other guys?”

“Come on, Sheriff Dwyer, you know too many cooks in the kitchen spoil the soup. It wasn’t Ellen’s battle to fight. Ellen had a reason to keep quiet about Beck.

“Cannon’s the only one I panicked on. It was the first guy I killed by myself. Having Ellen with me on Beck's death made me feel safer. The neighbors were starting to come home from work and check their mailboxes. They were doing all the neighborly things. Delivery people were dropping off dinners. I wasn’t sure if someone would come for a meeting with George, so I left out the back door and jumped a fence, hoping there were no cameras. If there were, nobody flagged it or reported it. I left him like that because I couldn’t get him out of the house. I didn’t think that one through except to be careful and clean up after myself. I’m sure I left some stuff behind, but I’ve never been in legal trouble and had no motive.”

“Murphy didn’t kill himself, did he?”

“Last to go. But you knew that. I told you that day, baby. I told you I had stuff to do, and I was a busy bee that morning. Why can’t you understand I did it when I thought you were in danger? I’m not letting something happen to you when you have those little girls to take care of, to say nothing of how I feel about your personal safety. I couldn’t bear the thought of you being hurt, and you gave me the exact times when everything would happen on the police end. I had enough time to go to his house and offer to dance for him. I made up some shit about how I’d always preferred him to Beck, and he bought it without question. Dumb mother fucker. I slipped him a little too much of his own product that my coworker, Cheryl, kindly provided for his drink, took off my clothes to dance for him to buy me some time, and then slit his wrists to make sure it took. Easy as pie to make it look like he did it himself. His laptop was right by the couch, so the email was easy. Did you even check for prints?”

Aaron shakes his head. “It looked open and shut.”

“Ironic. That was the only one I was sweating because I forgot to wipe the glass I put the fentanyl in. I was good about wiping down every other scene and rubbing out footprints. It also helped that I wore the club high heels. It’s amazing how my own boyfriend didn’t recognize the flat smoothness of high heels on the carpet at these guys’ houses.”

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